A previously unknown manuscript in the Puccini Archive in Torre del Lago was identified as the autograph score of the Preludio a Orchestra – and it turned out to be complete! The fourteen missing measures have been copied from this source, so that the complete Preludio can now be performed in its original form.
In the case of Ravel’s composition L’Aurore (Carus 10.407), submitted in 1905, the poet was Édouard Guinand, an author who had already provided the text for the cantata L’Enfant prodigue in 1884, with which Claude Debussy won first prize. L’Aurore describes an idyllic view of nature at sunrise and celebrates the sun almost as a deity for its beneficial influence on nature and mankind.
